al regions after Dante's description. Behind
a grating I made certain dark grottoes, full of stalactites and
stalagmites, with shadowy ghosts and pitchforked figures, all calculated
to work on the easily-excited imaginations of a Western audience, as the
West then was. I found it very popular and attractive, but occasionally
some countryman would suggest to his fellow spectator that a little
motion in the figures would add much to the reality of the show. After
much reflection I concluded to go in among the figures dressed like the
Evil One, in a dark robe, with a death's-head and cross-bones wrought
upon it, and with a lobster's claw for a nose. I had bought and fixed up
an old electrical machine, and connected it with a wire, so that, from a
wand in my hand, I could discharge quite a serious shock upon any body
venturing too near the grating. The plan worked admirably, and excited
great interest; but I found acting the part of wax-figure two hours
every evening in the cold no sinecure, and was put to my wits to devise
a figure that could be moved by strings, and which would fill my place.
I succeeded so well that it ended in my inventing a whole series of
automata, for which the old wax-figures furnished the materials, in
part, and which became so popular and so rewarding, that I was kept
seven years at the business, my employer promising me, from time to
time, an interest in the business, which he quite forgot to fulfill.
When, at last, I found out the vanity of my expectations, I left him. He
knew I kept no accounts, but he did not know that I reported all the
money he gave me to my wife, who did keep our accounts. He tried to
cheat me, but I was able to baffle him through her prudence and method.
For I had married in this interval, and had a wife and children to
support."

Powers was now thirty years old, and had acquired considerable
reputation in Cincinnati as an artist. His abilities coming to the
notice of Mr. Nicholas Longworth, of that city, that good genius of
young men of talent called on him and offered to buy out the museum and
establish him in the business. The offer was declined with thanks. Mr.
Longworth then proposed to send him to Italy to study his profession,
but this, too, being declined, Mr. Longworth urged him to go to
Washington and try his fortune with the public men of the country. To
this Powers consented, and, aided by his generous friend, he repaired to
the national capital in 1835, and sp